


Maryse Learns Social Media

by DeathAtTheParade



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Clary trying to be nice, Good Parent Maryse Lightwood, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Snapchat, Social Media, dorky malec, or at least trying to be one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-14 21:42:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11216820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathAtTheParade/pseuds/DeathAtTheParade
Summary: Clary decides to distract Maryse from her divorce and shows her how to use some mundane apps. Maryse ends up watching Magnus' snapchat story and seeing malec being dorks. (I suck at descriptions. Also my first fic so be gentle with me)





	1. Chapter 1

In order to cheer Maryse up from her divorce, Clary decided to show her some apps for her phone. It wasn’t much but Clary figured it’d be a nice distraction for her. Clary used her phone to show Maryse the apps she had since Maryse’s phone was just for business.  
Angry birds just frustrated Maryse. She didn’t understand why the birds would fling themselves at walls instead of flinging rocks or heavy things like that. Clary tried explaining that it was just a game. Maryse said it was stupid.  
Fruit Ninja was slightly more successful. Until Maryse started commenting on how much food they were wasting. Clary told her it wasn’t real but Maryse insisted that it was teaching kids to waste food.  
Clary tried a couple more games after that. Any type of fighting game brought on comments about inaccuracy and shadowhunter training rituals. Food games always came with comments about waste. Clary found out quickly that Maryse rage quit easily. It seemed that puzzle and mind games were Maryse’s favorites, she liked that mental challenge.  
After that they moved onto social media. Facebook was a bust. Maryse said it was boring and Clary had to agree. Instagram brought on a debate about what a selfie was and how to take it. They both decided that was a lesson for another day. Maryse had enjoyed looking at the pictures on Clary’s instagram though. Clary counted that as progress. Tumblr confused Maryse, she still isn’t sure what a pepe is. Clary had to spend several minutes explaining that harambe wasn’t a mundane political figure, even though some people thought he was. Once they got over the memes, Maryse seemed to not hate the site. She seemed oddly interested in all the posts about being gay. They moved on to Musical.ly after that. It was hard for Maryse to understand that the people weren’t actually singing. Clary showed her Izzy’s musical.ly. Maryse still didn’t understand. Twitter was a fairly successful journey. She liked reading through Clary’s feed, even if Jace posted some inappropriate posts. She thought Simon was funny.  
Clary had just started showing Maryse how to use snapchat when she was called for a training exercise involving her new runes. She left her phone with Maryse and told her to feel free to explore whatever she wanted. Well apart from her texts, those were private.  
Maryse decided to stay on snapchat, she hadn’t really seen anything on there besides one filter and she was curious. Also she didn’t know how to leave snapchat. She looked through the rest of the filters available before finding her way onto the stories. Maryse wasn’t sure exactly what they were at first until she clicked Clary’s personal one.  
There were a couple pictures of some sketches she did. One of Jace and the other of Alec, Maryse didn’t realize she was such a good artist. After the sketches was a selfie of Clary in one of the weirder filters. Maryse wasn’t sure what that meant. She also wasn’t sure what ‘streaks’ were, but Clary had apparently lost some and was sorry.  
Eventually Maryse found out she could see other people's stories as well. She clicked Simons first. He posted a couple pictures of himself and some other downworlders, Maryse wasn’t really interested in those if she was being honest.  
She should be doing work instead of playing on this phone, but she had to admit the distraction was nice. Dealing with Robert had caused her a lot of stress and the clave had no sympathy for her situation. So she had to juggle the divorce and all her work while behaving maturely with Robert even though she wanted nothing more than to punch him. It was nice to distract herself from that.  
Maryse had come to the institute for work purposes but also wanted to use this to bond with her children. She realized that she hadn’t been the kindest to them and wanted to fix it or at least try. She wasn’t sure how successful she would be at that. She still didn’t approve of several of their life choices, but if they were willing to make an effort she could as well.  
Breaking away from her thoughts, Maryse scrolled through the other stories. There were several names she didn’t recognize and a couple she did but didn’t care enough to look at. She kept going until she came across the name ‘Magnus Bane’. She was curious about what he posted about, but she also didn’t know if she wanted to see. She was trying to be more accepting of Alec’s life, but after her failed relationship she had a hard time trusting that any could work out well. Magnus’ reputation was also something she feared. She promised herself she would accept what Alec wanted, but she was still unsure about his relationship. She sucked in a breath and then clicked the name.  
The first picture that popped up was of breakfast food, the caption was a single heart eye emoji. It was a very mundane photo for a high warlock.  
The second picture was a selfie. Or at least what she thought was a selfie. Maryse would never admit this out loud but she was jealous of his makeup skills. The caption of this picture explained that Magnus had a day off today. Maryse hadn’t had a day off in years.  
The third picture was on a couch. It showed two sets of legs, one pair longer than the other. She assumed Alec was there.  
The fourth one confirmed her suspicion, it was a picture with Magnus leaning his head on Alec’s shoulder. They were smiling at each other. It didn’t appear that Alec knew the photo was being taken, his focus solely on Magnus. They looked happy. Maryse didn’t think Robert ever looked at her the way Magnus looked at Alec.  
After that picture there was a video, it seemed to have been taken a while later since the two were no long sitting on the couch. The video showed Alec walking back into the room, holding a bowl. She wasn’t sure what was in the bowl, but Magnus was cheering loudly and zooming in and out while Alec laughed at him. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw Alec laugh so happily.  
There was another video after that. Magnus was using a filter with sunglasses and music. He bobbed his head along to it. He was back to leaning on Alec. Or at least that’s what Maryse assumed, because he soon leaned over and the filter switched to him instead of Magnus. He looked offended by Alec’s action and Mayse found herself smiling at his expression. The caption said ‘betrayed’ with several frowning emojis.  
The next video had a different filter, the flower crown, both of them were wearing it this time. Magnus commented saying that now they both had one. Alec replied saying he wanted his. Magnus made a pouty face at him before Alec leaned over and kissed him softly. When Alec pulled away, Magnus looked slightly dazed and whispered that Alec could have it. Alec laughed and the video stopped. Maryse found herself smiling widely at them.  
A picture was next, it only showed their hands which were grasped tightly together. It looked as though Alec had been rubbing his finger along the rings on Magnus’ hand. The caption said ‘a professional handshake’. Maryse let out a soft laugh at that.  
It seemed that another skip in time had happened because now it was slightly darker out. This video was Maryse’s favorite. It was being held by Alec and he was laughing widely as Magnus laid on top of him trying to reach for the phone. Magnus was yelling something but Maryse couldn’t understand it over the sound of both of their laughs. It seemed as though Magnus was telling Alec not to look at something. Maybe it was the photo from before that Maryse didn’t think Alec saw Magnus take. Magnus struggled to reach the phone for the rest of the time as Alec wiggled under him laughing. Maryse laughed as well.  
There were no more pictures after that and Maryse found herself disappointed. Alec looked happy. Happier than she's seen him in a long time. It was because of Magnus. A downworlder. A man. Maryse figured it shouldn’t matter to her as much as it had before. Something that made people look that happy couldn’t be wrong. She decided then that she was going to double her efforts to involve herself in her children's lives. And to understands Alecs. She needed to apologize to Magnus too. She was tired of getting in the way of her childrens happiness.  
Maybe she’d get a snapchat too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maryse watches Alec's snapchat. And goes to see him after.

 

 

A couple of days later, Maryse had finally gotten the hang of social media. Or at least a basic understanding of how it worked. She had downloaded Snapchat as well as Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. Clary helped her add all the people Maryse was interested in. She was surprised by how many of the younger generations of shadowhunters had social media. 

Today was the first day of having social media that Alec had posted. Maryse had already been religiously watching her childrens snapchat stories and posts, but Alec had never posted. So after a long day of work, Maryse opened her sons snapchat story. 

The first post on there was from the day before. It had a picture of Jace laying on the ground, Izzy stood next to him flexing the caption read ‘I love watching Jace get his ass kicked”. She laughed softly at her children's antics. 

The next post was a video that was from this morning. The video showed Magnus without a shirt on dancing along to some loud music while appearing to be doing his makeup. 

There were two more videos after that of Magnus dancing while trying to apply makeup. It didn't seem as though Magnus knew that Alec was recording him. Maryse laughed as Magnus started to sink to the floor while applying mascara.

The video after that started the same as the last three, but halfway through Magnus noticed Alec was recording him and started dancing his way towards Alec. She could hear Alec laugh from the other side of the camera as Magnus started loudly singing and dancing in Alec’s direction. 

That was all Alec had posted, much to Maryse’s disappointment. She figured he wasn’t the type to post much ever so she was glad she got to see the little bit he did post. Maryse also knew that Alec was working late at the institute tonight. She decided to go find him, it was about time she talked to him about her change in heart.

* * *

 

Maryse walked into Alec’s office and found him with his head buried in a book. She knew he had a meeting soon and was probably trying to occupy his time before leaving for the meeting. The perfect time to talk to him. 

“Alec,” Maryse started, Alecs head snapped up. If this was a couple weeks ago Maryse would’ve scolded him for not being more alert. 

“Mother,” Alec said in greeting, sitting up straighter at his desk. Maryse felt herself shaking slightly as she moved to sit down in front of Alec. 

“I want to talk to you about something important.” she let out a shaky breath before continuing. “I want you to be 100% honest with me too… please.” 

“Whats wrong?” Alec asked then paused. “Did something happen with Dad?”

Alec was always so concerned for her wellbeing. She did not deserve for him to be so caring towards her. Not after all the things she put him through. He wanted her to be happy. And all she ever did was take his happiness away. Maryse took a deep breath, she was going to change that. She wanted to be part of the reason her son was happy.

“No, it doesn’t have anything to do with your father.” she said watching as Alec visibly relaxed. “First, I’m going to ask that you let me finish what I’m going to say without interruption. It's hard enough to say as it is and if you talk, I fear I'm never going to get through it.” Alec nodded, looking tense again. “A couple days ago, Clary started showing me how to use mundane social media. It’s really confusing, but that's not the point. Clary let me look at her snapchat and while I was looking I watched Magnus’ snapchat.” Maryse watched as Alec’s posture became more defensive. She mentally kicked herself. “Do you remember what he posted then? It was his day off. Yours too.” Alec nodded. “When I clicked it, I wanted to hate it. Hate you two together. Because that's how I’ve always felt. But I didn’t. I saw the way you two looked at each other. And I saw how happy you were. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that happy, Alec.” she could feel tears in her eyes. “I always told myself that I was looking out for your best interest. Keeping you safe and protecting the family. But I wasn’t. I was just choosing what was easiest. Following the rules and being, for lack of a better word, normal. I thought that would be what's best for you. But I didn’t notice- I didn’t want to notice- that I was making you miserable. A mother's child should never feel as though they have to hide who they are from her. You shouldn’t feel like you have to fear me coming here. But you do and it’s all my fault. I can’t live with that anymore. I know you probably hate me. I don’t see how you couldn’t. All I’ve ever done is take away your happiness. But I don’t want to anymore. I never wanted to, but I did.” Maryse paused to wipe her eyes. “Alec, I’m so sorry. I know it’s not enough to apologize. But that’s all I can do at the moment. I don’t want to take away your happiness anymore, Alec. I want you to be happy and forge your own path. Magnus makes you happy and I’m so sorry I ever tried to take that away from you. I love you, Alec. I know it doesn’t seem like it. But I’m going to try to make up for all the terrible things I’ve done to you. I don’t think I’ll be able to, but just know I’m going to try. I would also like to apologize to Magnus for how I’ve treated him. If that’s okay. I hated him for making you feel happy and loved and comfortable with yourself. What kind of mother does that? Gets mad because her son is happy?” 

“Mom,” Alec said, Maryse looked up with tears running down her face, waiting for him to yell. She deserved it. But instead Alec got out of his seat and hugged her hard. He buried his face in her neck and she swore she felt something wet. “I forgive you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all the people that commented on the last chapter. It made me really happy. I tried to put the two ideas that were commented into this chapter. I hope I did good. Not gonna lie, I got a little emotional typing the last couple of paragraphs. I hope you like it.   
> Also I'm debating writing a third chapter where Maryse talks to Magnus. Tell me what you think :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maryse finally talks to Alec

The next day, Maryse decided that it was time to talk to Magnus. As she made her way up the stairs to his loft, she started to get nervous. Most of her fear and nervousness was reasonable, she was about to go apologize to someone she did terrible things to. But she also felt that fear. The fear of downworlders. The fear that she had been taught since she was a child. Maryse did her best to push those thoughts away. Just because he's a downworlder didn’t mean he was going to react any differently than anyone else. 

Maryse knocked on the door and waited. She heard Magnus yell for her to come in. She didn’t think it was safe for him to just invite anyone in. He didn’t know she was coming. No one knew. Not even Alec. 

When Maryse walked in she expected to see him in the middle of doing something amazing. She expected potion making or floating spellbooks. She was not expecting to walk in and see Magnus buried in a pile of books. He sat in the middle of the floor surrounded by books and papers. 

“Magnus,” Maryse said as a greeting. 

“Maryse,” Magnus said with a slight smile. He stood to greet her. “I was doing some research for a client. I wasn’t expecting you this soon.”

“You were expecting me?” Maryse was confused. 

“Alec told me about yesterday.” Magnus said as an explanation. “He said you mentioned wanting to talk to me as well.”

“Oh, yes, I didn’t think you two had seen each other since then.” Maryse said stumbling slightly on her words. 

“He texted me.”

“Oh,” Maryse felt a little stupid for not thinking about that. “Magnus, I’m sorry for how I treated you. Not just with the whole Alec thing, but from before,” Maryse paused. “With The Circle. I was stupid. I still am stupid. I said this to Alec and I’m going to say it to you. I want to be better. I’m going to try to be better. I don’t expect you to forgive me or anything like that. I just want you to know that I’m going to try.”

“I’m used to shadowhunters treating me terrible, Maryse.” Magnus said, he seemed to be looking for any hint that she was lying. 

“You shouldn’t be,” Maryse said looking him in the eyes. “No one should be used to being treated as lesser. From my experience, downworlders are no different than us. I walked in here and you were doing research. Everyone does research, but for some reason we look at you like you are some freak of nature. I was raised to believe all downworlders were to be feared. That they couldn’t control themselves. But you're here doing research. Vampires are supposed to have uncontrollable bloodlust, but I watched Simon cry the other day because Clary killed a spider. I haven’t met a downworlder that acted anything like what I was taught. You are just normal people, sure you are a little different than us but I don’t see how that makes us better than you.” She paused. “Walking in here, I was scared. I was scared of how you would react but I was also scared because you were a downworlder. I’m so mad at myself. I was raised to think that way and I hate it. You’ve never done anything to hurt me. You’ve saved my life before. And yet I was scared of you. I shouldn’t feel that way and I’m sorry I did. You’ve done nothing but help my family and I treat you like shit. And you make Alec happy. I should be thanking you but instead I just insulted you. I know it's not good enough, but I am truly sorry.”

“I am a tiny bit skeptical,” Magnus said then sighed. “But if you're willing to make an effort then so am I.” 

Maryse smiled happily. “Thank you so much.” 

“I will not hesitate to tell you off if you revert back to your old self.” Magnus warned. Maryse nodded her understanding and then Magnus smiled. “C’mon, let me get you a drink.”

As Magnus made his way to his drink cart, he kicked several books out of the way. Maryse bent down and picked up the kicked books as Magnus made drinks. She neatly stacked the books out of the way.

“That's such an Alec thing to do.” Magnus said as he handed her a drink. Maryse looked at him confused. “Alexander likes to clean up after me. He does it all the time.”

“He’s been cleaning up after his siblings for years. It's a habit.” Maryse said sipping her drink. 

“Jace does it too. He’s more particular about it though. If he reorganizes my potion ingredients one more time, I may have to kill him.” Magnus murmured and Maryse laughed. “I hear you’ve been looking at Alec’s social media.”

“Yeah,” Maryse admitted. “I looked at yours on Clary’s phone once too.”

“Let me add you.” Magnus said holding out his hand for her phone. When she handed it to him, he typed in his user name and handed it back. “There now you don’t have to use Clarys. And I can send you embarrassing pictures of Alec.”

“Do you have a lot of those?” 

“Your son is very fun to get drunk.” Magnus said with a small smile. 

Maryse laughed at the idea of her son getting drunk and Magnus taking full advantage of it. From her experience, that seemed to be the only time Magnus would ever take advantage of her son. 

Maryse and Magnus sat and drank together for a couple hours. She found him easy to get along with and he had tons of stories about her children. She loved hearing of all the shenanigans her kids got up to on their days off. Magnus also told her stories about himself. He had lived a long time and had many adventures that she couldn’t even begin to understand. 

Magnus was just getting into a story about Peru when Alec walked in. He looked at the two of them confused before shrugging and taking his coat off. Maryse took that as a cue to leave. She knew Alec and Magnus didn’t get much alone time together and she didn’t want to interrupt that. 

“I should be going.” Maryse said setting the glass from her fourth drink on the table. Magnus and Alec nodded their goodbyes to her. As she made her way to the door, Maryse decided she needed to mess with them a little bit. “Use protection!” She called as she walked out the door. She could hear Alec start to choke on his own spit as she closed the door.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all like this chapter. It took me a little bit longer to write because I wasn't sure how exactly Magnus would react to Maryse, but I wanted to make it different than how Alec reacted


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maryse settles into her new life of being a good mother

A couple months later, Maryse had apologized to all of her children with the promise of being better. For the last few months she had stuck to her word and was becoming a genuinely nice mother. Her kids were hesitant to include her into their lives at first but now she was included in everything. Izzy and her would have girls days once a week. Clary came along sometimes and even Lydia, when she was in town. Jace started talking to her, about his problems and just anything that he needed to let out. Alec would tell her all about his relationship with Magnus as well as just general things about his interests. Overall, Maryse felt a lot closer to her children and she had never been happier. 

Of course, being closer to her kids had some downsides. Such as Jace feeling comfortable enough with her to pull pranks on her.  He put a tarantula in her shower once. She will never forgive him. Izzy was way too open about her sex life. As much as Maryse loved that her daughter trusted her and talked to her, there were just some things that people don’t need to know. And Maryse really didn’t need to know about her daughter's kinks. Maryse also was not prepared for Alec. She was so used to him being professional with her that when he started sassing her, in his affectionate way, she had a hard time not taking personal offense to it. Until Clary explained that that was just how Alec showed affection and that if anything actually bothered her he would stop. 

Being close to her children meant that Maryse was also close with her children's friends and lovers. She was not as close as she was with her kids, but she knew a good amount about the others. She even referred to some of them as her children. Clary was a sweetheart, a bit argumentative but Maryse respected that. Simon was just the cutest once she got to know him. Alec didn’t seem to appreciate that she liked Simon though. He said he was annoying. Maryse thought he was delightful. Maryse really liked Magnus once she got to know him. He even started to teach her makeup tips. She could now do perfect contour and she has never been prouder. Maryse also loved Raphael. He bought her a mother's day gift, even though she had only met him a couple times at that point. He was grumpy on the outside but a doll on the inside. He reminded her of Alec. Lydia was also another favorite of her children's friends. Lydia didn’t come around very often but Maryse loved her ‘take-no-ones-shit’ attitude. Maia was also a sweetheart. She had a tough shell but was a cutie at heart. Maryse was still confused by the time Simon and Maia tried to teach her about video games. One of Maryse’s favorites had to be Luke though. It was nice befriending another parent. Luke had practically raised Clary and Simon, but he was still close enough with the older members of the group to be considered a friend. They got along very well. 

Maryse didn’t get along with all of her children's friends though. Her and Lily Chen would probably never be able to have a civil conversation. Lily hated her because she was a shadowhunter. Lily hated almost every shadowhunter that wasn’t Alec though. So Maryse and her kept their distance. Maryse also couldn’t find it in herself to like Raj. Raj was okay. She could get along with him well enough, but she wouldn’t go out of her way to converse with him. She also had a very tense relationship with Meliorn. Izzy told her it would pass, but Maryse wasn’t very sure. 

Maryse also learned a lot about the downworld through her family and their friends. She could feel all the years of hatred and misunderstanding disappearing the more she interacted with downworlders. Maryse learned not to hate them because they were different and learned to respect them. She learned things she couldn’t say or do because they would offend them. She also learned about the history between downworlders and shadowhunters. Maryse learned in school about the shadowhunter version. The version that painted them in a heroic light. But now she knew the downworlder side and was able to make her own judgements. Her judgement being that the shadowhunters were wrong and treated the downworld poorly. She also found that downworlder safe spaces were a lot more fun than any shadowhunter only location. Of course, she would never go to a safe space without an invitation from a downworlder. Even if Magnus told her she was welcome in his club anytime. She felt as though she was intruding if she went without an invite. 

Overall, Maryse was happy with her life. Her divorce seemed to be the best thing that could’ve happened to her. She lost a husband who didn’t truly love her and gained a family that loved her unconditionally. She was happy. And hoped her life would stay this way forever. She already adapted to mother life and has started hounding her kids for grandkids. In a loving way of course. She was secretly rooting for Alec and Magnus to adopt Madzie. Another mother thing Maryse found she loved was hounding her kids about marriage. She sent Jace a three page essay about how great Clary was and how he should marry her before she realized she was better than him and got with someone like Izzy. That's when Jace decided to put the spider in her shower. Maryse had no regrets. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this story. I hope y'all liked it  
> I really had no idea how to finish this off so I decided to summarize. I also really like the idea of Maryse referring to Magnus as her son? Like I need that to happen. (itd be funny and heartwarming at the same time)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at 2am and didn't proof read it. This is my first time posting on here and I'm still not really sure how to use it yet tbh...


End file.
